What can I say about the island that is the heart of the Earth, where the energy reveals all your hidden desires and conceptions? According to legends a visiting tourist has two potential outcomes: the island accepts him or not.

Before coming to Bali I had heard many times that it is alive. I am sure that many of you who have been to Bali will understand me. I am dreaming of returning to this island! Many years have passed since I was last there, and lots of things inside me have changed. My experience of visiting Bali was unusual, mildly speaking, but let’s put everything in the right order.

Photo: @muradosmann

It was during New Year holidays. Only a few know that it rains a lot in this period on Bali and it’s not the best weather for lovers of getting a suntan and resting on the beach. Nevertheless, the island is still beautiful, and local people are still very friendly.

Photo: @muradosmann

We decided to rent a villa in the Seminyak region with friends (those who are fond of surfing and parties will love this place). One of the most famous beaches is there, called Potato Head.

I should add I brought some very interesting paintings made by the Australians from Bali. Their works meet a ready market there. In addition, it’s nice to do shopping in Seminyak – everything is cheap and nice. I brought an entire suitcase full of dresses, trousers, and blouses (and I still wear something from that).

We went to Ubud for one day, and it struck me with its power, loneliness and peculiarity. Ubud is located inside the island; using imagination, it can be said that it looks like a big tree with interweaving roots and branches. A lot of expats and interesting people live there. By the way, an impeccable coffee is grown on Bali, and there I learnt for the first time that natural ground coffee is good for no more than one month. Just there we tried luwak coffee also for the first time. Are you ready for the details how it is produced? Little animals that look like squirrels live there, they are called luwaks and eat only coffee beans, and, correspondingly, they poo-poo only these beans. Their excrement is processed and this results in a very rare and expensive coffee. What won’t people think of next!

Photo: @muradosmann

Of course, Bali is famous for its ideal surf beaches. As I am afraid of deep water and sharks, my fate is to enjoy this type of sport from the shore or in the best case to try it onshore. But for me the island is at its best with the locals, with their openness, their customs and uniqueness. At one point when it was raining, we were driving in the car looking at the island through the windows. Suddenly we saw a giant tree! It is even hard to call it “tree”. That was a jumbo-tree, a house-tree, a long story-tree. And beneath its branches there were crowded students, like small sparrows, dressed in a uniform that had the exact color of the tree.

Photo: @muradosmann

We couldn’t believe our eyes and asked our driver to stop, because we couldn’t miss this shot indeed. We ran out to these students and started taking photos, catching this “branded” shot. I was getting closer to them but they were afraid of me and were crowding together. A few minutes later the bravest of them decided to come closer to me, and to examine me, just smiling, and yet a second later a few dozen children were around me, singing, laughing and examining me curiously. We spent some time there and went further. But this tree of life and the children stuck in the memory for a long time!